i proved you can distinguish the difference
You didn't prove shit lol
How weird is that the only one who supports your thesis (you) is the only one who is claiming to have proved wrong everyone else's thesis, after watching a grainy photo? In a flawless way i must admit.
It almost looks as if you knew the answer already! Almost as if the result of the initial question had already been released!
Oh wait...
Again, the point of my post is that there is NO WAY that anyone can see the difference IRL especially if there is no watch to compare and especially if we are talking about 904l vs 316l.
One thing is a still macro photo, one thing is real life.
People shouldn't care about these invisible "tells", and should focus more on what's way more visible, like crystals or inserts / dials.
I do think it's scummy and obnoxious how some factories lied to us about the kind of metal they are using, don't get me wrong. But why is that no one is making a fuss about the rep's ceramic inserts? Why doesn't anyone care about the % of silica or other materials in the inserts? Because i assure you there is a big difference between rep inserts and gens.
Let me tell you, it's just a fetish. It's a marketing strategy to pump 100$ more dollars out of your pockets.
There is no real life advantage of using 904l over 316l, and i've seen countless of reps supposed to be 316l next to my gens and the color is basically the same, you can't notice a difference in real life, you could complain about the finishing, or the grade of polishing, those could make light reflect differently for sure.
It's all about being realistic and realize what's visible, and what's not, what's noticeable and what's not, it's also a lot based on personal priorities for sure.